in the san marino GP? I dont know if i was reading too much into the commentary. They said that the corner should have caused no problems, and something failed on the car which they havent identified.
Also, the steering column hit senna in exactly the right place to kill him.
Senna had complained about the Williams car being cramped (as mentioned) so just before Imola the Williams team modified the steering column to give him more room. It has been suggested that the modification broke, losing steering hence his car going straight on. Williams dispute this with telemtry from the car showing the steering still had force being applied, impossible if the column had broken.
They say that after running behind the safety car (first season a safety car was used in F1, and a slow saloon car at that) the tyres cooled down losing pressure and therefore ride height. The car then bottomed out at the corner and lost all its downforce. That downforce, far greater than the actual weight of the car, was what kept it on the road. Without it it simply did not have enough grip to make the corner.
And it wasn't the steering column that hit him but a bit of the suspension.
You mixed two different things into one.
One thing is that it is speculated that the steering column snapped, which caused Senna to lose control in the turn and crash.
Another thing is that in the course of the crash a part of the car suspension hit his head and killed him.
While they do say that there must have been something wrong with the car, they don't really seem to imply that it was maliciously tampered with.
You should remember that f1 cars are prototypes and as such are changed and hastily modified ever weekend. They are sertainly not implying that anybody would have sabotaged the car on purpose, but there has been inquierys into if the modifications were carried out correctly.
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